Houston Couple Featured in WaPo’s State of the Union Coverage

In case you missed it, an interracial lesbian couple from Houston was featured in the Washington’s Post‘s coverage of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, Jan. 30.

The newspaper reported on reactions to Trump’s speech in eight American living rooms, including that of Kandice and Kristen Webber, who were eating dinner in their EaDo home:

Kandice Webber dropped her fork in disgust when Trump noted that African American unemployment is at “the lowest rate ever recorded,” seeming to take credit for a downward trend that started in 2011.

When he labeled the recent Republican tax cuts “tremendous relief,” she relabeled it “the biggest tax heist in American history.” When he recognized the “Cajun Navy” of volunteers who used their fishing boats to rescue people during Hurricane Harvey, Webber asked why the president didn’t also acknowledge Black Lives Matter activists who were volunteering at shelters, providing medical care, coordinating clothing drives and mucking houses. And when Trump proclaimed that he wants “every citizen to be proud of this land that we love,” she told him: “So resign.”

Webber’s America is not Trump’s America. Her America is a place where marriages like hers — a 42-year-old African American woman married to a 29-year-old redheaded woman — are respected and celebrated. Webber, a registered nurse, said she wants an America where people can get affordable medical care, where police officers stop shooting innocent people and where human beings aren’t labeled as “illegal” because of their immigration status. She doesn’t like what’s happening to her country.

“People are a whole lot more okay with being racist than they were before,” she said. “This has always been America. America just came out of the closet is what happened.”

Comments

John Wright is the editor of OutSmart magazine. He has spent two decades in the mainstream and LGBTQ media. Most recently, he served as senior editor of Dallas Voice, and covered LGBTQ issues in the state Legislature for The Texas Observer. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Wright earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Florida. He resides in the EaDo area of Houston, where he is currently remodeling a 1930s row house.